On regional integration and state police

SIR: Regional Integration is not national disintegration. A nation is a system that has many parts in which any malfunction or dysfunction of a part will affect the other parts and the whole system. Nigeria is not functioning, and this is glaring, because the regions are not functioning well due to poor financing, maladministration at the centre and lack of visionary and transformation leaders. Regional integration will will turn around the fortune of the nation. Regional integration means the coming together of components regions in a state to benefit from economy of scale.

The present administration has neglected security as a critical component of national transformation. The country is today in fear of attacks by terrorists who are bent on running the country down. Nigeria is endowed with vast natural resources like iron, lime, tin, gold, petroleum, water sources, arable land and highly informed human resources, yet we lack food security and other infrastructures that can make life meaningful because of dearth of visionary and transformation leaders.

The central government lacks the capacity to influence the regional parts on the kind of development necessary to move the region and the country forward. While states like Edo, Lagos, Osun, Ekiti, Rivers, Oyo and Ogun are doing well, the central government refuses to show signs of development. Regional integration will ginger developments and healthy competition among the regions like we had in the first republic.

The establishment of state police will improve the security of the country and help to prevent crime. The recent disapproval in some quarters, especially the elites, who should know better, is expected and welcomed. In 1822, Robert Peel, a wealthy member of the Britain’s Parliament, strongly believed that London’s population, crime rate and crime nature merited a full-time, professional police force. But many English, especially the politicians, objected to the idea. They feared possible restraint of the liberty and atrocities.

They also feared a strong police organisation because the criminal law was already perceived harsh (by the early 19th century there were 223 crimes in England for which a person could receive capital punishment). Indeed, Peel’s efforts to gain support for full-time, paid police officers failed for seven years. Peel finally succeeded in 1829. His bill to Parliament – entitled “An Act for Improving the Police In and Near the Metropolis”, which culminated in the establishment of the Metropolitan Police – was popularly known as the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829.

The intention of policing a community is the prevention of crime. Nigeria has changed socially, economically and demographically from the time the Nigeria Police Force was created by the colonial masters. Nigeria is an amalgamation of different states with different cultures. Creation of state police is inevitable if we want to maintain peace and other and care for national development.

Different states have some different security challenges and different states have different priorities for crime prevention and control. A state that is ready to spend more for its security should be allowed to do so.